Quilting Bee

Day 128: As close friends will tell you, my mind works in strange ways. Oftentimes when I make a joke, it goes undetected for weeks (sometimes forever) before the person to whom it was directed says, "Oh, NOW I get it! That's what you meant." As a general rule, my humour involves word-play in some form or another, even when it translates to the visual in my quilts. Nearly all of my quilts have contained some private chuckle which, if you don't think like a Crow will probably never be recognized. For example, the quilt I'm currently piecing contains several nursery rhymes, including the Owl (obvious) and the Pussycat (also obvious) who went to sea (a nautical motif) in a beautiful pea-green boat (fabric colour but no boat, alas), all pieces within the same block. I don't plan it that way; it just seems to occur as I'm selecting fabrics for assembly. Sometimes the "joke" appears in the stitching, as above. It came to me as an afterthought one day as I was stitching the hexagon quilt. Flipped over to the plain white back, the honeycomb design was too obvious to let go unremarked. I decided it needed a bee...you know, a "quilting bee"...somewhere. Shown with a needle for scale, how long do you think it will take before the recipient of this quilt finds it?

Almost Done

Day 316: I realize that this is a little precipitous, but it represents the point at which a decision had to be made. When in late October 2019, I took on the project of finishing a king-sized heirloom quilt begun by a friend's grandmother over fifty years ago, the plan had been to have an old-fashioned quilting bee in the spring, a get-together which would allow both her and our other sister-of-the-heart to place a few stitches in the design. We were in the middle of trying to work out a schedule for the bee when COVID hit, and the plan had to be put on hold. I kept working on the quilt between other projects with the thought that by the time I had it nearly done, the pandemic would be history. Ah, what a nice dream that was! At this point, the quilt is done but for the last two blocks I had intended to leave unfinished until we could hold the bee, but COVID is still strong among us and not showing any signs of waning. Thus it was that I posed the question to Mousie yesterday about how she wanted me to proceed. Her decision saddens me, but it seems the only reasonable option. She wants me to finish it: "You. My sister, who has shown such care and love and thoughtfulness throughout this process" which of course means that the bee will not be. Still, knowing that the quilt will be keeping her warm in her New York home this winter fills me with the pride of accomplishment even as it makes me wonder if I, aged markedly by the stresses of these times, will see my dear friends again.

Dresden Orange

Day 277: With our plans for a Sisters-of-the-Heart Quilting Bee disrupted by the pandemic, I found myself getting too far along on Mousie's grandmother's Dresden plate quilt, so to ensure that we have enough to do when it becomes possible for them to come for a visit, I laid it aside and picked up where I left off piecing my own version of Dresden plate. My desire to make an orange quilt date back at least forty years. At one time, I had an appreciable stash of orange-themed prints set aside, but later disposed of them when I thought my quilting days were done. Oh, yes, I've kicked myself many times for that foolish move, believe me! A couple of years ago, the idea resurfaced and I began accumulating appropriate fabrics, although at the time, I hadn't settled on a design. Eventually, a twenty-blade Dresden plate won the toss, although Memory Wreath (one of my favourite patterns) was running a close second. I decided on a chocolate-brown base fabric for the blocks to give the whole quilt an autumnal feel, with yellow centers in the plates, perhaps repeating as "streets and alleys" between the blocks. Today, I will be piecing the last two plates, leaving four to be appliqued to the base fabric. As for the "streets and alleys," well, it looks like this project will also have to go on hold until COVID leaves the building. Not to worry! There's always a Plan B in any experienced crafter's closet.

Streets, Shamrocks, DNA

Day 28: If Mousie is amazed, so am I in how rapidly her quilt is progressing. That's not to say I'll have it done in anything under a year, but I have completed the hand-stitching of 15 of the 24 "streets" which includes shadow-quilting and a twisted-ribbon design running the length of each one (a pattern I refer to as "DNA" because it's a half-double helix). I've also filled in the nine shamrocks at the intersections and some additional work near the broad borders. I am not devoting myself exclusively to this project, no. In fact, today I've been hard at work on machine-finishing the cathedral window kitty quilt, and in the evening when I feel my back needs a break, I'm hand-stitching orange-themed Dresden Plates to dark brown broadcloth (I'm going to hate myself when it comes time to quilt that). But...and here's the important part of today's post...if schedules can be tweaked to coincide, my two sisters-of-the-heart are planning to come out to the Pacific Northwest for a quilting bee some time in the coming months. This quilt is going to have quite the historic lineage!